Enid H. Long, 71

Served on college board, medical relief missions

January 29, 2002|By James Janega, Tribune staff reporter.

Enid H. Long, 71, a twice-widowed world traveler who served for more than 20 years as a trustee at Columbia College in Chicago and was an advocate for better health care in the United States and developing nations, died of cancer Sunday, Jan. 27, in her winter home in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Mrs. Long, who also lived on Chicago's Near North Side, was most widely known for undertaking humanitarian causes over the last 25 years at the side of her third husband, a physician. Her previous marriage was to an American ambassador, and she lived in diplomatic missions in Europe and Africa.

Elegant and gracious, she enjoyed lively conversation about world events and politics. She was a regular at Chicago Council on Foreign Relations lectures and was featured yearly at American Foreign Service Association ceremonies, bestowing a prestigious foreign service honor, the Rivkin Award, which she founded and named after her second husband.

She was a graduate of Columbia College. When she later joined the college board of trustees, she became known as a persistent voice for students' concerns, said Alton Harris, former board chairman of the board.

"She was, without a doubt, one of the most involved and dedicated trustees Columbia has ever had," he said.

The former Enid Hammerman grew up in Glencoe, graduated from New Trier High School in 1948 and attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. In 1952, she married John Dreyfus, whom she had met in high school. He died in 1957.

She remarried in 1959 to Chicago attorney and Democratic political organizer William R. Rivkin, later a U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, Senegal and Gambia. He died in 1967.

A year later, she established the award in his name to honor constructive dissent among foreign service officers. The decision was typical of her reaction to adversity, said son Robert Rivkin.

"She always looked at the positives. She was just a very loving, optimistic, positive person," he said.

In 1967, she hosted the WLS-TV show "A.M. Chicago," and in 1971 she married Chicago obstetrician Dr. John S. Long.

From the 1970s until the 1990s, she and her husband helped to bring medical relief to remote regions in Peru, Africa, Thailand and Cambodia. They once narrowly escaped a guerrilla advance in the mountains of Peru, and in 1999 they were involved in relief efforts to Macedonia.

She returned to college in 1971, earning a bachelor's in communications at Columbia in 1973. Passionate about the school's ability to train people for careers in the arts and media, she became a trustee there in 1979 and served on the board until her death.

In addition to her husband and son, Mrs. Long is survived by two daughters, Laura Ledford and Julia Wheeler; another son, Charles Rivkin; five stepdaughters, Rebecca Sung, Patricia Ryan, Tracy Tuman, Martha Ferris and Mary Chris Smith; a stepson, John S. Long Jr.; a sister Joanne H. Alter; 10 grandchildren; 21 stepgrandchildren; and a stepgreat-grandson.